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Would restricting access to Russell Group universities and introducing an Oxbridge lottery crack open Britain’s elite?

  • 15 October 2024
  • By Nick Hillman

Nick Hillman, HEPI’s Director, takes a look at the new book ‘Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite’ by Aaron Reeves (Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Oxford and Sam Friedman (Professor of Sociology at the LSE).

As the last book I reviewed on the HEPI website was by Sam Freedman, it seems a ripe moment to review the new book by Sam Friedman – and his co-author Aaron Reeve.

Once the lengthy throat clearing at the start is out of the way, Born to Rule uses extensive social science research – largely based on entries in Who’s Who – to show today’s posh people like to downplay their backgrounds: ‘43 percent of elites who told us in our survey that they are from working-class backgrounds actually come from professional, middle-class families.’ In a nod to Pulp, the book’s concluding sentence refers to ‘the pernicious cosplay of an elite masquerading as common people.’

This claim is partly based on showing how the elite have become less highbrow in their professed tastes, more often choosing pop when on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. But as this tends to mean the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan, they ‘may simply be a new kind of snob; a somewhat stealthy popular culture snob.’ This is, apparently, not an accident. The elite opt ‘to project ordinariness’ because growing inequality and a decline in deference have combined to undermine their security.

This picture is generally persuasive but it is also contestable on the details. Take the authors’ argument that, as part of their claims to ordinariness, today’s Who’s Who entrants are more likely than their predecessors to mention regular pursuits, like spending time with their children, as one of their recreations. But perhaps this is because people do spend more time with their children these days – is the keenness of elite people to claim they spend more time with their children really mainly down to concealing a love of Wagner? 

When Friedman and Reeve turn to education, they focus on nine elite private schools (including Eton, Winchester and Wellington), which they argue inculcate ‘a sense of one’s exceptionalism.’ This comes from three sources: the sifting that occurs when such schools decide which pupils get in; the broad curriculum; and the general environment among classmates, which nurtures ‘distinct identities’. It is hard to argue against this, but the authors downplay something important when comparing their nine elite traditional boys’ private schools to the mass of schools. It’s not just the fees, the curriculum and the pupils’ backgrounds which have made the former schools so different: it’s their residential nature, as pupils spend two-thirds of the year away from their families. This fact is not entirely ignored but neither, to use one of the authors’ own favourite terms, is it ‘foregrounded’.

When it comes to universities, the focus is almost entirely on Oxbridge. The data suggest Oxford and Cambridge rose, fell and then rose again when it comes to the relative likelihood of their graduates entering the elite. Men born before 1940 who went to Oxbridge and then joined the elite could sail through their degree courses without doing much work (though it wasn’t always the same for the few women). In contrast, later Oxbridge students of both genders found the institutions to be properly academic and worked harder: the proportion of Oxford students with third-class degrees fell from 30% in the 1950s to 5% in the 1980s.

‘Elite families, schools, and other institutions’ felt forced to respond by improving their school exam grades and broadening their extra-curricular activities. The goal was to recapture Oxbridge, which they duly did. Oddly, in their telling of this story, the authors pretty much ignore the culling of state grammar schools as well as the shoving of direct-grant schools into the fully independent sector by Shirley Williams. Any conversation on the share of private school kids at Oxbridge in the period from the 1940s until today that largely ignores such shifts feels incomplete.

The authors confirm that, if you want to maximise your chances of entering the elite after attending Oxbridge, it helps to come from a really wealthy family. Their scratchy calculation suggests you’re five times more likely to enter the elite if you come from a very rich family and attend Oxbridge than if you come from a more modest background and attend Oxbridge. And the authors make it clear that they see the existence of two (or more) Oxfords and two (or more) Cambridges: in other words, the experiences of entrants with advantaged backgrounds can be radically different to those of people from more humble backgrounds. (The bifurcation of the student experience more generally across the sector is discussed in the latest HEPI / Advance HE, Student Academic Experience Survey.)

Reeves and Friedman suggest it is the way they link elite composition to the distinct balance of political views within the elite that is their ‘biggest contribution.’ Or to put it another way, as the book goes on it becomes less an analysis of elites and more a paean for progressive politics.

There is a faint air of disappointment whenever members of the elite don’t share the left-wing views of the authors. This is clearest in the chapter on women. The interviews with female members of the elite, we are told, ‘problematise the idea that the progressive attitudes of elite women necessarily translate into a common political agenda for change.’

Moreover, even though women are increasingly found within the elite, there is ‘little evidence that they are more likely than the men they are replacing to pursue changes that disrupt the status quo.’ Women who espouse the tension between opening up elite education and what it might mean for their own families are displaying the type of views that have ‘always plagued progressive politics.’ Even when women in the elite have worked to further equality, it has been too small scale to ‘meaningfully change the policy agenda.’ At moments, Born to Rule reads almost as if the growing number of women in the elite have let down the two authors by not being sufficiently more progressive than their male counterparts.

The argument is taken further in the chapter on ethnicity, which suggests people who categorise their ethnicity as ‘Other’ and who express views that are often comparable with the answers from white people may be taking part in ‘an act of self-preservation against a hostile white majority elite’. This is not entirely convincing, at least to me, given the ‘Other’ people in question have all made it into the elite. 

Just 3.5% of the book is taken up with policy ideas for tackling the identified problems. The authors admit, ‘Sociologists tend to be better at diagnosing problems than proposing concrete solutions.’ Whether that is right, it is true the policy ideas are not fully formed.

One is to restrict privately educated people to 10% of places at Russell Group universities. So St Andrews could take as many Etonians as it likes but Cambridge couldn’t. Moreover, if Oxbridge or Durham, say, disliked the imposition of such a rule, they could presumably just stop paying their annual Russell Group sub? And if families opting for private education were put off by any new quota, we’d likely see a big increase in the number of Brits opting to get their higher education abroad.

The aim of the cap on independently educated applicants seems to be to reduce the proportion of families that use independent schools, thereby pushing more kids into state schools, thereby pushing their parents to start lobbying for more spending on state schools. Even if this goal makes sense, there are a lot of ifs and buts on the way. 

The recommendations also include instituting a lottery for Oxbridge entry, which is more interesting but still a little odd. Friedman and Reeves seem to envisage the top 5 per cent of students being put in a lottery for Oxbridge places. As this is designed to level up the geographical spread of Oxbridge entrants, unlike other ideas for using lotteries for entry to successful educational institutions it seems people would be entered in the lottery whether they want to be in it or not.

No one would claim Oxbridge entry is completely fair now and no doubt this proposed model could bring about some positive changes, but it would also mean putting pressure on people to go to Oxbridge who do not want to study there, which feels bad for some people’s mental health and unlikely to inculcate a sense of belonging among students. And many of the stellar Geordies pushed towards Oxbridge by such a system might actually prefer to study at, say, one of the ancient universities over the border in Scotland, some of which are geographically a lot closer than either Oxford or Cambridge. Moreover, Oxbridge is, as Friedman and Reeves unequivocally show, one pipeline for joining the elite but it is not the only one – plus not everyone believes their life’s fulfilment rests in joining the elite anyway.

In the end then, the book feels topsy turvy. The recommendations make out we need to reform traditional educational institutions not for educational reasons but primarily because it might change the make up of the elite in modern Britain, and in a political cause. It’s reminiscent to me of nothing so much as those who want proportional representation because they think it will usher in permanent left-of-centre governments or those who support Scottish independence because they think it might similarly lead to perpetual progressive politics. But if we are to rip up so much, are there not stronger arguments for doing so?

6 comments

  1. Ros lucas says:

    The last sentence is paramount to any change happening.

    When parents in particular allow children to make choices based on interests, aptitudes, research and visits, not on possible future outcomes, where psychometric testing, Level and relevance of Degree, as well as networks and connections matter more than university attended, there is the possibility of having more politicians better educated and trained (insist on an Apprenticeship and experience for any Department responsibility)to introduce some real levelling up, perhaps.
    Amalgamating private and state education with similar private funding quotas would make change quicker and jump start levelling up…
    levekl

  2. Albert Wright says:

    Being born into the right family certainly gives you a good start if you want to be in the top 5% of the population. Ask prince Charles now Charles III.

    Follow this with the best early years education involving private schools and tutors up to the age of 18 and throw in at least some time at a boarding school and you are well on your way.

    Choose the right University, the right subject and supplement it with some private AI tuition to keep in the fast lane. Add the right Internships and work experience with the right employers during the holidays.

    Donate to a few charities and make sure you choose an appropriate spouse (with a similar but not identical background).

    Top it off by working at an employer with a good graduate scheme for 2 or 3 years and by the time you ar e 25 there should be no looking back and you will be on the first rung of the ladder leading to a privileged life for the next 50 years.

    Being a good sports person also helps.

    Some might call it the rise of the meritocracy.

    There will always be a hierarchy in any free society. Why would you want to change what works fairly well

  3. Colin says:

    The book repeats the common (but misleading) claim that inly 6% of students go to independent schools. But that figure jumps to 12% when you limit it to those who stay till they are 18, and 17% when you look at those who did 3 A-levels. So what they are proposing is not a modest rebalanced, but actually penalising those who are educated privately.

  4. Rajat says:

    Reengineering with jealousy will not go far. You are selling 70% of university seats to abroad applicants. It is like kicking a lazy family kid hard but inviting giving away bedroom spaces to unknown tenants for hot money.
    Lack of foresightedness and connections with the route is the cause of this type of misadventure.

  5. Dilhani says:

    In here and everywhere else they only take about the super rich chikdren who go to private schools.But no kne talks about middle class parents children who go to.private schools because there is no other option like there is no good government school in catchment area and they won’t get into Catholic schools because they are non catholics.What about those parents who spend every penny they earn on private schools?Is it fair for those kids to restrict the access to Russell group universities?

  6. Hugo says:

    The end of meritocracy will lead to the end of the West.

    And as it begins to burn, the Neo Marxists university teachers who come up with these ideas will say “it’s better we are all living in poverty in caves, than we all live in a wealthy society if one person is getting ahead of others.”

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